Stanley Cup Playoffs

I have created a bracket for the Stanley Cup Playoffs for everyone to download. As you fill it out, remember that the teams are reseeded in the second round. So if 1, 2, 6 and 4 advance, 1 plays 6 and 2 plays 4. Comment below if you would like me to create some desktop backgrounds for the playoffs as well.

TRADE: Minnesota and Ottawa

The Minnesota Wild and Ottawa Senators have agreed to a trade that sends forward Matt Kassian from Minnesota to Ottawa. The Wild have received Ottawa's sixth-round draft pick in the 2014 NHL Entry Draft in return. Kassian has a goal and twelve penalty minutes in nine games for the Houston Aeros (AHL).

-NHL.com

TRADE: Columbus - Philadelphia

Seems like Columbus and Philadelphia have a good relationship going. There have been numerous trades between the two teams in recent history, and this just adds to that list.

Philadelphia has traded minor-leaguer Matthew Ford to the Blue Jackets for future considerations. Matthew Ford was an eigth-round pick for the Chicago Blackhawks in 2004. The right wing has four goals and nine assists in 35 games for the Adirondack Phantoms. Ford will report to Springfield (AHL).

-NHL.com

Realignment Update

I tried to post some of this last night, but it wasn't working for some reason. The NHLPA gas agreed to the realignment plan set forth by NHL officials on Thursday. The NHL Board of Governors will now vote on the issue at hand. Expect to hear the result of that vote sometime next week. According to Aaron Portzline, the vote will be done via fax. He also stated that this is a good sign that the realignment will be agreed upon.

NHL Standings After 20

All of the teams in the NHL have finally completed 20 games, with Boston being the last. this is a major milestone in the season because of what it can forecast. The 1994-95 season started with a lockout that resulted in a 48 game schedule. The same happen this year. The part that is most interesting though is that out of the 16 teams that were in playoff position, 15 of them actually made it. We can expect to see something similar this season. I do not foresee 15 of the 16 teams making it because there are four more teams this year than there were then (Columbus, Minnesota, Nashville, Winnipeg).

	Eastern	DIV	GP	W	L	OT	P	ROW	GF	GA	Diff	Home	Away	S/O	L10	Streak
1	Boston	NE	20	14	3	3	31	12	60	46	14	6-2-1	8-1-2	2-1	6-2-2	OT 1
2	Pittsburgh	ATL	20	13	7	0	26	12	69	54	15	5-4-0	8-3-0	1-0	6-4-0	Lost 1
3	Carolina	SE	20	11	8	1	23	11	60	57	3	5-4-0	6-4-1	-	6-4-0	Won 2
4	Montréal	NE	20	13	4	3	29	12	58	43	15	8-3-1	5-1-2	1-2	7-1-2	Won 1
5	Ottawa	NE	20	12	6	2	26	9	48	37	11	9-1-2	3-5-0	3-1	6-3-1	Won 5
6	Toronto	NE	20	12	8	0	24	12	57	46	11	4-4-0	8-4-0	-	7-3-0	Won 1
7	New Jersey	ATL	20	10	6	4	24	10	49	52	-3	6-2-2	4-4-2	0-2	4-5-1	Lost 3
8	NY Rangers	ATL	20	10	8	2	22	8	51	51	E	8-4-1	2-4-1	2-2	5-3-2	Won 2
9	Winnipeg	SE	20	10	9	1	21	10	55	61	-6	4-5-0	6-4-1	0-1	6-4-0	Won 3
10	Tampa Bay	SE	20	9	10	1	19	9	71	64	7	6-4-1	3-6-0	0-1	3-6-1	Lost 3
11	Philadelphia	ATL	20	9	10	1	19	9	58	61	-3	5-2-1	4-8-0	0-1	5-4-1	Won 1
12	Washington	SE	20	8	11	1	17	8	55	59	-4	5-5-0	3-6-1	-	6-4-0	Won 1
13	NY Islanders	ATL	20	8	11	1	17	7	57	68	-11	2-8-0	6-3-1	1-0	4-6-0	Lost 2
14	Florida	SE	20	6	9	5	17	5	51	73	-22	3-4-4	3-5-1	1-1	2-4-4	OT 1
15	Buffalo	NE	20	7	12	1	15	6	50	64	-14	3-6-1	4-6-0	1-0	4-6-0	Won 1

* Designates division leaders

	Western	DIV	GP	W	L	OT	P	ROW	GF	GA	Diff	Home	Away	S/O	L10	Streak
1	* - Chicago	CEN	20	17	0	3	37	15	64	37	27	8-0-1	9-0-2	2-3	9-0-1	Won 7
2	* - Anaheim	PAC	20	15	3	2	32	11	71	53	18	8-1-0	7-2-2	4-2	8-1-1	OT 1
3	* - Vancouver	NW	20	11	5	4	26	9	59	50	9	6-3-2	5-2-2	2-4	5-3-2	Won 1
4	Los Angeles	PAC	20	11	7	2	24	10	54	47	7	6-1-1	5-6-1	1-1	8-2-0	Won 1
5	St. Louis	CEN	20	11	7	2	24	9	59	56	3	5-5-1	6-2-1	2-1	5-3-2	Won 1
6	San Jose	PAC	20	10	6	4	24	7	47	41	6	7-1-3	3-5-1	3-3	3-4-3	Won 1
7	Nashville	CEN	20	9	6	5	23	7	44	47	-3	5-2-3	4-4-2	2-4	4-4-2	Won 1
8	Dallas	PAC	20	10	8	2	22	9	56	57	-1	4-3-1	6-5-1	1-0	6-3-1	Won 1
9	Minnesota	NW	20	10	8	2	22	8	45	48	-3	7-2-1	3-6-1	2-1	6-3-1	Lost 1
10	Detroit	CEN	20	9	8	3	21	8	59	56	3	7-4-1	2-4-2	1-0	4-4-2	Lost 1
11	Phoenix	PAC	20	9	8	3	21	8	57	55	2	6-4-1	3-4-2	1-2	5-4-1	Lost 1
12	Calgary	NW	20	8	8	4	20	8	57	65	-8	5-5-2	3-3-2	0-3	5-4-1	Won 1
13	Colorado	NW	20	8	8	4	20	7	50	59	-9	6-2-1	2-6-3	1-1	4-2-4	OT 1
14	Edmonton	NW	20	8	8	4	20	6	49	53	-4	4-4-2	4-4-2	2-1	4-5-1	Lost 1
15	Columbus	CEN	20	5	12	3	13	4	44	61	-17	3-4-3	2-8-0	1-1	2-6-2	OT 1

* Designates division leaders

As I suspected, a little over 20 points is the cut off point for playoffs spots right now. In fact, both eighth place teams have 22 points. I expect to see the cut off for actual playoff teams to be in the 50-55 range.

Standings from NHL.com. Table converted from Excel to HTML with the help of TABLEIZER.

Blue Jackets

Per Aaron Portzline of the Columbus Dispatch has reported that four teams have sent scouts to the game in Columbus tonight versus the Oilers. Those teams are Colorado, Los Angeles, NY Rangers, and Ottawa. There was also a report out of Pittsburgh from Rob Rossi of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that the Penguins may be interested in Jack Johnson.

NHL Realignment

Over the past few days, the NHL has been trying to realign the league. This issue came about when the Atlanta Thrashers became the Winnipeg Jets. The league wanted to realign for this season and came up with a similar format last year, but it was declined by the NHLPA for use as a bargaining chip in the impending lockout.

The league has now modified their proposal from last season and is bringing forth a new plan; one that sends Columbus and Detroit to the Eastern Conference. The previous proposal also had four conferences instead of the two we see in the current proposal. The current divisions is as follows

National Hockey League
Western Conference		Eastern Conference
Pacific	Mid-West	Central	Atlantic
Anaheim	Chicago	Boston	Carolina
Calgary	Colorado	Buffalo	Columbus
Edmonton	Dallas	Detroit	New Jersey
Los Angeles	Minnesota	Florida	NY Islanders
Phoenix	Nashville	Montréal	NY Rangers
San Jose	St. Louis	Ottawa	Philadelphia
Vancouver	Winnipeg	Tampa Bay	Pittsburgh
		Toronto	Washington

With the proposed format, the playoffs would include the top three in each division along with two wild cards from each conference; with the second wild card winner playing the team with the most points in the conference. This could allow for five teams from one division to be in the playoffs. The four division winners will play the four wild card teams in the first round. All the 2 seeds the 3 seeds from the same division in the first round as well. This will create a division playoff within the Stanley Cup playoffs.

The second round will see the divisional championship games. These will be played between the winners of the 1 vs. 4 series and the 2 vs. 3 series from the same division.

The winner of the Central and the Atlantic division playoffs will play for the Prince of Wales Trophy (Eastern Conference Champion) while the winners of the Mid-West and Pacific division playoffs will play for the Clarence Campbell Trophy (Western Conference Champion). The winners will play in the Stanley Cup Final.